The co-pilot of the doomed Germanwings flight repeatedly accelerated the plane as he used the autopilot to crash the A320 into the Alps killing everyone on board, the French air accident investigation agency said Friday.

The BEA agency said in a statement that an initial reading of the black box data recorder shows that Andreas Lubitz used the automatic pilot to put the plane into a descent and then repeatedly adjusted it to speed up the plane as it crashed into the mountain.